Poem: Daddy by Sylvia Plath

When we read the title of the poem, then the first thought came in our mind is love between Daddy and Daughter. But this poem is not about the love but hatred. Sylvia Plath represented her hatred for daddy through this poem.
The question came in our mind is that why she needs to write such poem?, Why she needs to destroy her relationship with her dad?
The answer to this question is difficult to understand. She has given many reasons but mostly all believes that because of her mental instability she wrote such piece of work. Otherwise there is nothing cruel in the relationship between her and her dad.

1. Male Domination

The poem is very strong expression of resentment against the male domination and also the violence of all kinds for which man is responsible. 'Daddy' is a symbol of male dominating society. This is also a symbol of general agents and forces like science and reason, violence and war, the German and their Hitler, and all other inhuman agents. Thereby the speaker is a symbol of female and creative force.

2. Psychological point of view

This poem can be analyse from psychological point of view. Sylvia Plath is suffering from  neurotic anger. Though it is slightly autobiographical, the poem must be interpreted symbolically and psychologically. From the very beginning to the end, Sylvia keeps on attacking on her daddy through words. There is no stronger weapon in the world than our words.

"You, "Black Shoe", I have had to kill you"

The speaker wants to kill her dad, she lived for thirty years, poor and white, as in the Nazi concentration camps of the second world war. She is not able to breathe or express her pain. Her tongue is struck in her jaw. She is always scared of daddy or the German images of terror. She feels she is descendant of a gypsy ancestress. She is afraid of the neat Moustache like that of Hitler, and the Aryan eye. She thinks that her daddy had a brutish black heart

3. Mental Death not Physical

The speaker's daddy is already died when she was ten years old. But she wanted to kill him again and throw him out of her mind. She also tried to die herself, but they prevented her. She made a model of her daddy and killed it. She had killed him and his vampire that drank her blood for seven years. The worst thing she did is calling him  a Bastard.

4. Extremity of anger

The entire tone of the poem is extremity of anger. This signifies that it is not common with a normal person in real life. The poem does not literally express the reality alone: it is the relieving anger and frustration in the form of poetic expression. In reality Plath's father loved her very much when she was a child. So her death was always a shock to her. But while she felt tortured without her father, she also felt suppressed by her father's dominating image.

5. Female protest

The female speaker represents the creative force and she is angry with the destructive forces symbolised by he daddy. The speaker says, " I'm trough", meaning "I, m satisfied" at the end. She is relieved.